


Salvage

by banbanabas



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alphynecentric, Angst, Dark Thoughts, Hurt/Comfort, follows canon to a point, poor alphys, warning for suicidal leanings/depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 15:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5338475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banbanabas/pseuds/banbanabas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That's where I met Alphys for the first time!! I was looking for cool swords, when I saw her... Uh, standing there, staring into the abyss. She looked pretty... Um... ... Contemplative."</p>
<p>Alphys might have described herself a little differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salvage

**Author's Note:**

> written for the prompt: "Their first meeting <3"
> 
> meant to post this earlier but finals week is here. ;_;
> 
> this one's a little darker for sad alphys-related reasons.

Alphys had dropped lots of things into the abyss before. _For science_ , she had told herself. _I want to see where it ends_. Every rock, stick, or piece of shrapnel she’d thrown into the void had disappeared without a noise to mark the end of its descent, and that terrified her on a normal day.

Today was not a normal day.

She had dared to read some of the patients’ families’ letters that afternoon, and boy, did she regret it. Some of them had still used kind words, but others had resorted to threats and insults by now. She couldn’t blame them. She’d promised to return her patients at least a month ago. Yeah, the patients she’d _ruined_.

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she knew she couldn’t cry in public. What would Asgore think if he found out she sobbed like a baby in the garbage dump? _Pathetic, useless trash_. Shaking away the tears, Alphys pressed her knuckles into the rock formation separating the dump from the abyss, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She focused on the sounds of running water, the soft plunking of debris from the surface finding its way into the underground rivers. Finally, after a long moment, she was calm enough to open her eyes again.

God, she hated how much the abyss called to her. She hated it, she hated wanting to come here, she hated _herself_ for coming here at all, and she hated what she did to those poor people--

“Where do you think it ends?”

The voice jarred her badly, and Alphys jumped as she turned to face its source. On her right stood a tall, blue-skinned woman in a no-nonsense suit of armor. She held her helmet under her left arm, the other hand cocked on her right hip. Alphys hadn’t even heard her walk up.

“I-I’m sorry?” Alphys said shakily.

The woman nodded to the gaping maw before them, her red ponytail bobbing with the movement. “That huge hole. Where do you think it goes?”

Alphys took a shaky breath and tilted her head. “Well. Uh. I w-would think it went p-pretty far down into the Earth’s crust. Yeah. I’ve thrown lots of j-junk in there. But I’ve never heard it hit the ground.”

“Really?” she said. Before Alphys could reply, the woman grabbed a broken door from one of the junk piles and heaved it over the edge. It spiraled dizzyingly as it descended, disappearing from view in mere moments. Alphys watched the armored stranger crane her neck and place a hand around her ear comically (or what Alphys assumed was her ear. She couldn’t see much behind the fins on either side of her face). When no sound came, she gave a conceding expression and nodded. “Huh. You were right! I didn’t hear a thing. Spooky!”

“Ha ha, yeah. Spooky,” Alphys repeated.

“What happens to the stuff that goes down there, then?”

Alphys pulled at the collar of her lab coat. This lady sure was talkative. “I c-can’t be sure since I don’t know how far it goes, exactly. But if it’s d-deep enough, the pressure would get really, really high. And anything that reaches the bottom would get compressed.”

“The pressure?”

Alphys nodded. “Yeah. Think about g-gravity. The closer you get to Earth’s core, the st-stronger the pull is toward it.”

“Cool! So anything that falls down there will just start going faster?”

“Uh-huh. T-to a certain point.”

The armored stranger laughed heartily. “That is so awesome! I wish I could see it happen.”

_Me, too_ , Alphys thought to herself, averting her eyes to the pools of water. She doubted they were thinking the same thing.

“Oh, I didn’t introduce myself,” the woman said abruptly. “I’m Undyne.” She turned and held out a gauntlet-covered hand to Alphys. “Captain of the Royal Guard, at your service!”

Alphys looked up and shook her hand gingerly. “Alphys. R-Royal Scientist, at yours.” At that Undyne grinned from fin to fin, exposing a mouthful of intimidating, yellow fangs. Alphys couldn’t help but smile back, albeit a little nervously.

“Whoa! You work for Asgore, too? What are the chances!” Undyne exclaimed.

“Yeah. Weird,” she muttered. Undyne made a humming noise in agreement.

“Hey! What are you down here for, anyway?” she asked. Alphys squirmed where she stood. There was no way she could tell her the real reason ( _I’m contemplating my imminent doom. What about you?_ ), but she was too emotionally drained to come up with an excuse. She had to settle for a half-truth.

“I, uh, come to the dump to find. Um. D-documentaries of human history?” she explained, though the last part came out sounding like a question. Alphys sighed internally.

Undyne’s fins twitched upward. “Didn’t know we got any of those down here. What kinds of human history?”

Alphys blanched. “Well, uh. Basic human interactions. And their wars, sometimes?” That was... Kind of true? Maybe? A sudden clanking noise beside her nearly made her jump out of her skin. She turned to see Undyne facing her fully, her helmet forgotten on the floor of the cavern.

“That sounds great! Man, I would kill for that kind of information,” she said excitedly. “I’m supposed to be hunting humans, but I don’t know anything about them at all. How many of those have you found?”

Well. Alphys had done it again. It was too late to take it back, now. “Lots, ah, ha ha. I-I could show you s-sometime, if you want.”

Undyne gave her widest, toothiest grin and stepped forward to grasp Alphys by the shoulders. “Really? Yes! Yes, I’d really like that! You’re a huge help, Alphys!”

That... That sent a warm feeling to her chest, somehow. The idea of her helping anyone, actually _doing something right for once_ , dispelled all those awful thoughts that had been swirling in her head all day, and she gave a genuine smile to the tall woman beside her. “I d-do what I can.”

Maybe they weren’t documentaries, per se, but they might help Undyne anyway, right? Maybe she wasn’t so bad, after all.


End file.
